The Trap
"Flash missing. Vanishes in crisis." Barry reads in confusion. "After an epic street battle with the Reverse-Flash, our city's very own Scarlet Speedster disappeared in an explosion of light."
Caitlin smacked Barry’s arm. “Barry, look at the date”.
“April 25th, 2024? Guys, when I fought The Reverse-Flash at Christmas, he said that we'd be fighting for centuries” he says.
Caitlin frowns. “Wait, you can't really think that this is from... the future. That would means Dr. Wells, or whoever he is, is also... From the future”.
Cisco finally spoke up. “I have to say, I'm really digging the brighter red suit. And the white on the symbol? That's dope. Wait a second. Suppose we now change the color on your suit. Will it be because we got the idea from this picture? That would mean we're living in a causal nexus. This... wow. This is so trippy. Like, Marty and the Polaroid trippy”.
Caitlin squinted her eyes taking a closer look at the name on the paper. “Who is the name on the byline”?
Jacob Allen…
“Jacob Allen, who is that?” Cisco asks looking at Barry. “Relative?”
Barry shakes his head. “No, none that I know of, or can think of”.
“Good evening, Barry Allen” a face suddenly appears, which causes everyone to jump.
Barry takes a look at the face and notices it must be part of the program. What he finds strange is that it recognizes his voice. “Uh... H-hi. You know who I am?” he asks pointing at himself as if talking to a person.
Caitlin smacks at Cisco trying to get him off of her, he grabbed a strong hold of her when he heard the voice and wouldn’t let him go. “Of course. Barry Allen, director of Central City Police, CSI Division”.
“Director?” Barry says turning to Cisco and Caitlin.
“I guess you get a promotion”.
“Also known as The Flash. Founding member of...” she begins to trail off but Barry cuts her off. “What are you?”.
“I am Gideon, an interactive artificial consciousness”.
Cisco smiles. “AI. Sick”.
She then turns to Cisco and smiles at him. “Mr. Allen my apologies I did not notice you there, how are the children doing?”
Cisco looks behind him to see who see is talking to and when he sees no one he looks at Barry. “Ummm, she thinks I’m you”.
Barry looks to Gideon. “Gideon you called Cisco, Mr. Allen” Barry says trying to get her to focus back on him.
“I’m sorry Barry, but you asked me to call him that, would you like me to refer to him by another name?” she asks.
Barry breath quickens. “Why would I ask you to call him that”.
“As a joke you asked that he be called that, would you prefer I call him by his first name and last name, Cisco Allen”.
Barry quickly looked to Cisco who was staring at Gideon wide eyed. “What?” Cisco whispers but its loud enough they can hear.
“We are married in the future?” Cisco asks stepping back.
“Yes, Mr. Allen with 4 children to date” she confirms.
“4 KIDS?!” ok it was official Cisco was freaking out. Barry starred at Cisco wide eyed, that was a complete shock. “I’m going to pass out”.
“Cisco don’t freak out” Barry says calmly.
“Don’t freak out! How are you not freaking out?” he asks stepping back running his fingers through his hair.
“We” he says gesturing between the two of them. “Are married in some future with 4 kids”.
Barry shook his head and decided to switch subjects. “You know Dr. Wells?” he asks with caution.
“Yes”.
“Do you know who he really is?” he tries.
“I don't understand the question”.
Barry quickly answers, not waiting to trigger some kind of alarm that may alert Wells. “I... I mean, what is he doing here? W-why did he come here?”
“To kill you” she states with ease
Suddenly Cisco cell phone gives off a warning alarm. “Wells is in the building”.
“What? How do you know that?” Caitlin asks with a raised brow.
“I put a tracker on his wheelchair. Which, if we're wrong about him and he is paralyzed, I'm going to hell for that one” he gulps. “He's in the Cortex. Ask questions fast”.
“Why did he kill Nora Allen?” he asks.
“Because he was angry”.
“About what?”
“That you escaped” these are not the answers Barry wanted, she was answering him but everything was short sentenced and simple he wanted real answers and more time.
“He's on B level. He's coming this way” Cisco warned.
“What does he want from me?” he quickly asks.
“For you to be The Flash”.
“Maybe that's why Wells let the particle accelerator explode, so that you could become The Flash” Caitlin says.
“Why? I mean, for what reason?” Barry runs his fingers through his hair and starts to pace the room.
“Guys, we got to go. He's almost here. Hurry!” Cisco rushes.
“All right” Barry moves to leave but Cisco stops him.
“Wait a second. Wait. What if HAL over there tells Wells that we were in here?” Cisco states.
“That would be bad” Caitlin says.
“if I can get into its operating system, maybe I can disable its memory core. Gideon, can you show us where your operating system is?” Cisco asks.
“Certainly” she says.
As soon as Cisco takes a look at it he can tell it something from the future, which means it would take lots of time to even begin to figure out where the on and off switch is located, much less trying to erase part of her memory. “Yeah. Nope. That's not gonna happen” he laughs reaching back to check his phone.
“Guys, he's in the corridor”.
“Gideon, could you just, like, not tell him that we were here?” Barry tries.
“Of course. I will accept any command given to me by you or Cisco Allen” she confirms.
Cisco cringes a bit at the name, it’s weird to hear. “Come on. We got to get out of here”.
“Wait, wait, and wait. Why would you accept our commands?” Barry asks.
“Because you created me Barry Allen”.
“Really? For three very smart people, that was really stupid. What if Wells had caught you in that...? “Joe points in the direction of the time fault.
“Time vault” Cisco finishes.
“Thank you” Joe places his hands on his hips, his kids were going to be the death of him.
“Baby, are you ok?” Eddie asks moving to Barry’s side, giving his back a small rub.
“Yea, just upset I didn’t get the answers I wanted” he states looking to Cisco, who was staring down at his phone. Obviously trying to avoid this awkward situation.
“Okay, I know we've seen a lot this past year, but time travel?” Joe states.
Barry sighs before saying. “Joe I did it. Or I will do it, I mean”.
“Excuse me?” Joe is officially confused now.
“One of the two speedsters in Barry's house the night his mother died was Barry. I mean, The Flash. He was there. Which means that one day in the future, Barry will travel back in time to that night” Cisco explains.
“Okay. Actually, I wasn't talking about that. I kind of already time traveled. By accident. I was running to try and stop a tsunami from hitting the city...”
Eddie instantly cuts him off. “When was that?” he asks.
“A few weeks ago. Right before you started getting those dreams” he says looking to Cisco.
Cisco freezes and slowly sits down in a nearby chair. “Oh, you mean the ones where Wells uses his super-speeding hand to shred apart my heart? Those?”
Yes, right. So, what if they're not dreams?” Barry asks.
“What else could they be?” Cisco says.
“Memories”.
Joe shakes his head. “I'm not following”.
“All right, what if, that day, Cisco found out that Wells is the Reverse-Flash, and then Wells killed him? But when I ran back a day, I changed the timeline so that event never happened” Barry explains.
“If it never happened, how can Cisco remember it?” Caitlin asks.
“I don't know. I don't know. I think the important thing is, he does. Guys, I think I've got a really bad idea”.
“Okay, can we go over this one more time?” Cisco states, he wanted to make sure this went perfectly and there was no chance of him dying again. Those dreams haunted him the last few weeks and he wanted to make sure there was no chance of them coming to life again.
“Yeah, you put the glasses on, fall asleep, and start dreaming. Not that hard.” Barry explains, he knew Cisco was nervous but he wouldn’t let anything happen to him.
“Yeah, except I'm pretty sure I die in this dream. If I go back into it, am I gonna die in real life? I mean, what are we talking about here? Is this Inception or Dreamscape?” Cisco starts to panic.
West rolls his eyes and grabs a glass of milk. “Here. Drink this”.
Cisco furrows his brow. “What, am I five?”
“Just drink it”.
“Okay” he says taking his back.
“You're gonna be fine, Cisco” Barry assures as Cisco lays back on the bed. Barry leans on the bed. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you”.
If there was an award for the most awkward year this had to be it. “Mm. Okay”.
Caitlin places the glasses on his face. “The glasses are emitting a low-level delta wave which should help you fall asleep”.
“Okay. I got to warn you, though, usually it takes me a long time. I mean... I'm not saying I'm, like... an insomniac or any...” and with that Cisco is out like a light.
“Ah, so that's how you get him to shut up” Joe laughs.
“He's entering REM. It's working” she smiles looking at the monitor.
“Cisco. Can you hear me? Barry: You're dreaming” he says.
Cisco looks around and notices everything is exactly the same.
“This is mad freaky” he says.
Cisco begins to explain to them the details of that day, what was happening, how to asked Caitlin to distract wells and all. If Barry had to be honest he was a little worried about Cisco learning what happened that day because the day before had been when he and Cisco had sex and he broke his heart and the last thing he wanted was to lose his best friend again like he did that day.
Barry notices that Cisco’s breathing picks up. “Oh, God, Wells is here”.
“Cisco, it's just a dream. He can't hurt you” Barry says giving his shoulder a small squeeze.
“You better be right about that” he panics.
My name is Eobard Thawne.
“Eobard Thawne” Cisco says.
“Thawne? Like Eddie Thawne?” Joe says alert.
You killed Nora Allen.
It was never my intention.
“Nora? What about my mom?” Barry asks.
“He's confessing……He... he didn't want to kill her. It was you, Barry. He was trying to kill you” Cisco says beginning to panic uncontrollably, it was like he was reliving the dream all over again. It freaked him out when he thought it was just a dream but not beginning here completely scared him. He knew it wasn’t real but it couldn’t seem to bring himself to believe that at the moment.
“His blood pressure's 200 and his heart rate is 147. Guys, he's losing higher brain function” Caitlin says.
“Cisco, you're gonna be okay. It's just a dream. You're gonna be okay” Barry says rubbing his shoulder.
I have grown quite fond of you, Cisco
If I didn’t have to do this maybe, you would have gotten to meet your son Jacob
“His hand... It's vibrating. He's gonna kill me!” Cisco begins to shake.
“Oh, God. He's gonna have a stroke. Get him out of there!” Caitlin yells.
In many ways, you've shown me what it's like...
“Help me, please!”
To have a son
“Help me! Aah!” Cisco instantly sits up and grabs Barry who pulls him in his arms.
“You're okay. It was just a dream. You're okay” he whispers in his ear looking at Caitlin who is showing concern.
“Oh, God. It felt so real” he says. “Jacob”.
“What?” Barry says stepping back.
“He said, If I didn’t have to do this maybe, you would have gotten to meet your son Jacob. Jacob Allen was the name on the future article. But it’s weird though, I could feel his hand on my stomach as if he was saying I was already pregnant or something” Cisco says running his fingers through his hair. Barry’s eyes went wide and he took a step back.
“Jacob Allen is yours and Barry’s son?” Caitlin says wide eyed.
“Wait what?” Joe says wide eyed.
“We saw a newspaper article in the time vault that had the name Jacob Allen. And Barry and I learned we are married in some future” this was way too much info for everybody to handle. They had learn so much in the last 12 hours.
“Barry?” Caitlin says tilting her head.
It can’t be. He couldn’t have been pregnant……
Barry came out of his dazed and cleared his throat. “Sorry, I was just thinking about my mom. That's this it's my fault”.
Barry phone goes off. “Hello?”
Where are you?
Barry. Barry, are you there?
Barry looks at everyone. “Dr. Wells. Yeah. It's... sorry, yeah. It's... it's a bad connection right now”.
Where have you been?
Barry doesn’t know exactly what to say. “Uh, we're... Why? What's going on?”
A fire. A huge fire just erupted
“Where?” he asked.
New Brighton. Bradford Tower High-Rise
“I know that building. That's where Captain Singh's fiancé works. On my way”.
“It's so strange. I mean, I look at him now, and I know that he killed my mom and he sent my dad to jail, but, I mean, sometimes he's just so kind in the moment, I actually like him. But you never did” Barry says to Joe.
“No” Joe confirms.
“Well, at least now we know how to trap him. In Cisco's dream, he confessed to everything. If we can just recreate those conditions, he'll do it again” Joe explains.
Barry frowns at that. “No! No way in hell we are not putting Cisco’s life in danger”.
“Barry it’s the only option we have” Eddie says.
“Taking down bad guys, pulling confessions. I'm the cop. I'm the one that's supposed to be doing this” Barry says rejecting the idea .
“Look, if we're gonna get him to confess, it has to be with someone that he truly trusts, someone that he'll genuinely let his guard down with. He thinks of Cisco as a son” Joe explains. “All we have to do is recreate that night, but make sure that Cisco is protected”.
Eddie noticed how protective Barry seemed over Cisco, but he didn’t know why that made him so uncomfortable. “So, Wells set up a fake showdown with a fake opponent who was never really there?”.
“He figured if we saw both of them together it would prove that he wasn't the Man in Yellow” Barry says.
“This all just keeps getting crazier and crazier” Eddie says.
Barry walked over to Eddie and wrapped his arms around him. “Look if you don’t feel comfortable with all this yet. You can sit it out”.
Eddie shook his head. “No, I want to do this. I want to be here with you” he leaned up and kiss Barry. But even that felt off.
“I just talked to Dr. Wells. He's attending a lecture downtown, won't be back until 5:00” Caitlin says making her way into the room.
“All right, Cisco, you know when he gets here you need to be working on the trap so he sees you set off the hologram” Barry says walking over to him.
Cisco sighs. “I'm ready for him. I originally designed the force field to keep a speedster from getting out. But I've reversed it. Now it won't let one in” he says walking to step onto the trap turning on the force field. He signals for Barry to try it out and Barry runs towards it slamming into one of the nearby desks.
Eddie runs over to him. “Barry, are you okay?”
Barry blinks a few times before saying. “Ah. It works”.
“Okay, as long as I'm inside, Wells won't be able to get near me” Cisco confirms.
“And I will be in the Cortex watching and recording everything that happens” Caitlin says.
“And as soon as we get the confession we need to free my dad, I'm moving in” Barry says.
“You really are incredibly clever, Cisco” Wells says slowing walking towards him. “I've always said it”.
Cisco took a few steps back. “You're him. The Reverse-Flash. Joe was right this whole time, wasn't he?”
“Good ol' Joe. Joe West had his doubts all along. Even from that first night in the hospital, Joe knew something wasn't right. Cops... as inconvenient now as they will be in a hundred years” Wells says taking a few more steps forward.
“Come on, Cisco. We need a confession” Barry says into the microphone.
“You killed Barry's mother. I want to know why” Cisco tries.
“It was never my intention to kill Nora. But from my perspective, she was already dead. It just happened sooner than it was supposed to” Wells explains.
“No. That's not an admission” Eddie says.
“You're not gonna get away with this” Cisco says stepping into the trap.
Wells chuckles and moves closer to the trap “I'm not gonna get away with it?” Soon as well is close enough Cisco activates the force field.
Wells looks it over and smirks at Cisco. “Oh, you're smart. You're smart, Cisco. But you're not that smart” Wells steps into the trap with no problem.
“Cisco!” Barry says speeding to him.
“Barry” Eddie yells.
Wells raises his hand and Joe instantly takes his gun and shots. Barry runs after the as many of the bullets as he can but he doesn’t stop the one the pierces Wells heart. “No! He didn't confess” Barry says looking at the body.
“Cisco, are you okay?” Caitlin asks.
“Yeah. I'm never ever gonna sleep ever again, but, yeah, I'm okay” he says taking a deep breath.
“He's dead” Barry runs his hands through his hair and starts pacing. “He didn't confess. Joe, this was it. My dad's gonna be in prison forever”.
Joe finally took the chance to swallow the lump in his throat. “Barry, I'm sorry
Cisco notices that the body is starting to transform. “Hey, uh... Whoa. What the hell?” he says.
I told you this before. I am always one step ahead... Flash. Allow me to reintroduce to you Mr. Hannibal Bates and his incredible ability to transform into any person he touches. I knew that ability would come in handy. I did not expect it to come in handy this soon.
Barry was furious. “You used him! Like you used all of us!”
Well, he served a purpose. Didn't take much convincing. Just the simple promise of his freedom.
“You ruined my life! All our lives! We stood by you after everything that happened” Barry yelled looking around for any signs of Wells.
I can see how this must be difficult for you to understand, but trust me, your lives now are so much better because of what I have done for you
“You don't have to hide anymore. We know you're not Harrison Wells. Just tell us who you are” Joe yells out.
A confession will get you nowhere. You've seen who I am. You know what I can do. You want to kill me, go ahead. I'm not gonna fight you
“But just tell the police what you did. Get my dad out of prison” Barry tries, he doesn’t want to beg but he was desperate at this point
I don't want to kill you, Barry. I need you. And... I also did not anticipate, as difficult as the past 15 years have been for me, how much I would come to love working with you. With all of you. And yet, that does not change what needs to happen
“Then face me now!” Barry yells.
Oh, we will face each other again. I promise you. Soon. Very, very soon.
Cisco phones goes off. “He's in the time vault!”
Barry takes off. “Barry!” Eddie yells
Barry stops when he comes into the vault and see’s cameras of everything. Everywhere, he had been watching them the whole time and they hadn’t the slightest clue. “It was all a set-up. We thought we set a trap for him, but he set a trap for us”.
“BARRY” He heard Joe call.
Barry quickly ran back to the cortex. “You guys ok?” he asked.
“He took Eddie!”